1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to an optical disc library apparatus for taking out a portable optical disc stored in a magazine from the magazine and carrying the optical disc to any optical disc drive, an optical disc to be used in the apparatus, and an optical disc library system configured by using an optical disc library apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, an amount of data to be stored in a large-scale data center is rapidly increasing, and accordingly an amount of less accessed data in the data to be stored also tends to increase. Therefore, a library apparatus for archiving less accessed data into a portable information recording medium, which is able to reduce power consumption and to be suitable for long-period storage, attracts attention.
The portable information storage medium is an optical disc such as a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) or a Blu-ray (registered trademark) Disc (hereinafter, BD). The optical disc roughly includes a rewritable information storage medium such as a DVD-RAM or a BD-RE, and a recordable information storage medium such as a DVD-R, a DVD+R, or a BD-R. Further in recent years, a new more large-capacity BD disc is being developed.
The optical disc is superior to a hard disc drive (HDD) or a magnetic tape such as a Linear Tape-Open (LTO) in terms of warranty of the data for fifty years, namely, semi-permanently.
According to the high capacity of the optical disc in recent years, a recordable optical disc that is more inexpensive than a rewritable optical disc has a greater opportunity to be used for archiving less accessed data.
As a library apparatus for archiving in an optical disc, a library apparatus that includes a plurality of optical disc drives and utilizes a plurality of optical discs which is stored in a cartridge case (hereinafter, magazine) is disclosed (for example, see Patent Literature 1). This library apparatus performs recording or reproducing on or from the plurality of optical discs by unit of magazine collectively and transfer speeds of the recording or reproducing can be improved. Further, the optical discs are put into the magazine, so that the library apparatus can restrain lowering factors in reliability of the optical discs such as fingerprints and scratches.
Further, as the library apparatus using the magazine storing the plurality of optical discs, a disc array as one virtual large volume is structured in a plurality of optical discs in a magazine and in a plurality of optical disc drives. The library apparatus performs recording or reproducing on or from the disc array i.e. a RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks). As a result, the library apparatus, in which recording or reproducing data is highly-reliable, is disclosed (for example, see Patent Literature 2).